He's Our President, Dagnabbit

Bill Maher's back on without writers and this has caused him to change the format of Real Time. One new feature is a man on the street video, in which people have described themselves in ways 180^o from the views of the candidate they support, and so on. It's an homage to Jay Leno's recurring bit, "Jay-Walking."

Those of us who populate what Maher describes as small outposts of progressivism surrounded by rednecks, know all too well that when strategists invoke the average American, they reference some idyllic creature who just happens to make the case for their tautology du jour, not the folks who are featured in Caucus Me.

Sure, there is editing galore, but also an eerie familiarity. Unless you're in upper management, these are the people you work with.

Matt Taibbi wrote in the latest Rolling Stone: "...at the crucial moment, the presidential race turns into something from the cutting-room floor of Truly Tasteless Jokes #50: 'Three change-promisers walk into a bar. . . .'"

No doubt his piece had already gone to press before the latest dust-up over Obama's venture into history and punditry, in which he ascribes epochal markers to certain presidencies and, hardly curiously, not to others.

Ronald Reagan held the shiny object which swayed back and forth as Americans hypnotized themselves into trading in their best interests and the long term viability of their nation.

William Kristol might say "enough already" at the invocation of Reagan, because it's become all too clear how his fresh start for the country was the beginning of the rise of the corporatocracy and the gradual acceptance of the notion that the bottom line (from which all goodness trickles) trumps the rights of man. I wouldn't want so many ready comparisons invoked either, if I were of his persuasion.

Nobody since has jerked the reins of state back to favoring the average and/or defenseless citizens, first and foremost, or been able to rise above politics as usual and return the government to a role more challenging than presiding over the looting of national resources and absconding with the taxes.

No, I think you have to give Obama's point it's due, even if it mentions a president from the other side.

Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts: there's a continuum to Reagan, so long as you're not trying to trace a rising arc from the Enlightenment to the modern day. That graph looks more like the latest earnings from Washington Mutual. But in terms of concomitant, large scale cultural shifts marking an administration, I think he's spot on.

If the Clinton camp got its hackles up again, so be it, because the comment translucently allows Obama to woo the California independents and Republicans. The framing crew over at Clinton HQ had to add bogus emotional content, inferring that Obama had said Reagan's ideas were better. He hadn't said that.

When you play thus to the emotional import, rather than the factual accuracy of your remarks, the lexicographers have beaten you to the ability to define your methods favorably. They call it demagoguery.

The Clintons played the party loyalty card no differently than the hallmark use of nationalism favored by the demagogues in residence.

I'm growing weary of not getting around to the matrix of policy and character differences around which my vote depends.

Most of the blame probably lies in the formulaic coverage of politics at so many highly sought out sources. (Not the good papers. Not the good essayists.) No wonder that the various campaigns find it so easy to turn on and off the tap of "breaking news," and proceed shamelessly with their shenanigans. That's evidence of how acceptable it's become or nobody would participate.

What's better than knowing that push-polling is taking place? Knowing that examples of such calls have made the heaviest rotation on the cable news. Free re-airings of dirty tricks. What a country!

And what a country Mike Huckabee envisions for us.

One hundred points for honesty, but after 8 years of backsliding from the separation of church and state, what would prompt anyone other than a dominionist* to endorse the following:  "...I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards."

And you wonder why nobody could mount a successful drive to impeach George W. Bush? He had a head start, lying so effectively as a candidate and at all his scripted, staged appearances at every milepost along the way. It took years of leaks and investigation to uncover Bush's actual disdain for the role of "the defender" to which he swore his and God's name.

Huckabee, on the other hand, makes no bones about his predilection to live under (indeed, preside over) a theocracy. Admire his candor, if remaining positive is your virtue, but after these particular eight years, nobody wants to hear the words "he's our president, dagnabbit" again.

He, like Bush, does not deserve the respect of the office.

Next week: Super Duper Doppler for Super Duper Tuesday

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